Hawksley heard the lift door close, and he knew that at last he was
alone. He flung out his arms, ecstatically. Free! He would see no more
of that nagging beggar Ryan until tomorrow. Free to put into execution
the idea that had been bubbling all day long in his head, like a fine
champagne, firing his blood with reckless whimsicality.
Quietly he stole down the corridor. Through a crack in the kitchen door
he saw Kuroki's back, the attitude of which was satisfying. It signified
that the Jap was pegging away at his endless studies and that only the
banging of the gong would rouse him. The way was as broad and clear as
a street at dawn. Not that Kuroki mattered; only so long as he did not
know, so much the better.
With careful step Hawksley manoeuvred his retreat so that it brought
him to Cutty's bedroom door. The door was unlocked. He entered the room.
What a lark! They would hide his own clothes; so much the worse for the
old beggar's wardrobe. Street clothes. Presently he found a dark suit,
commendable not so much for its style as for the fact that it was the
nearest fit he could find. He had to roll up the trouser hems.
Hats. Chuckling like a boy rummaging a jam closet, he rifled the shelves
and pulled down a black derby of an unknown vintage. Large; but a runner
of folded paper reduced the size. As he pressed the relic firmly down
on his head he winced. A stab over his eyes. He waited doubtfully; but
there was no recurrence. Fit as a fiddle. Of course he could not stoop
without a flash of vertigo; but on his feet he was top-hole. He was
gaining every day.
Luck. He might have come out of it with the blank mind of a newborn
babe; and here he was, keen to resume his adventures. Luck. They had not
stopped to see if he was actually dead. Some passer-by in the hall
had probably alarmed them. That handkerchief had carried him round the
brink. Perhaps Fate intended letting him get through--written on his
pass an extension of his leave of absence. Or she had some new torture
in reserve.
Now for a stout walking stick. He selected a blackthorn, twirled it,
saluted, and posed before the mirror. Not so bally rotten. He would
pass. Next, he remembered that there were some flowers in the dining
room--window boxes with scarlet geraniums. He broke off a sprig and drew
it through his buttonhole.
Outside there was a cold, pale April sky, presaging wind and rain.
Unimportant. He was going down into the streets for an hour or so. The
colour and action of a crowded street; the lure was irresistible. Who
would dare touch him in the crowd? These rooms had suddenly become
intolerable.
He leaned against the side of the window. Roofs, thousands of them,
flat, domed, pinnacled; and somewhere under one of these roofs Stefani
Gregor was eating his heart out. It did not matter that this queer old
eagle whom everybody called Cutty had promised to bring Stefani home.
It might be too late. Stefani was old, highly strung. Who knew what
infernal lies Karlov had told him? Stefani could stand up under physical
torture; but to tear at his soul, to twist and rend his spirit!
The bubble in the champagne died down--as it always will if one permits
it to stand. He felt the old mood seep through the dikes of his gayety.
Alone. A familiar face--he would have dropped on his knees and thanked
God for the sight of a familiar face. These people, kindly as they
were--what were they but strangers? Yesterday he had not known them;
to-morrow he would leave them behind forever. All at once the mystery
of this bubbling idea was bared: he was going to risk his life in the
streets in the vague hope of seeing some face he had known in the days
before the world had gone drunk on blood. One familiar face.
Of course he would never forget--at any rate, not the girl whose courage
had made possible this hour. Those chaps, scared off temporarily, might
have returned. What had become of her? He was always seeing her lovely
face in the shadows, now tender, now resolute, now mocking. Doubtless he
thought of her constantly because his freedom of action was limited.
He hadn't diversion enough. Books and fiddling, these carried him but
halfway through the boredom. Where was she? Daily he had called her by
telephone; no answer. The Jap shook his head; the slangy boy in the lift
shook his.
She was a thoroughbred, even if she had been born of middle-class
parentage. He laughed bitterly. Middle class. A homeless, countryless
derelict, and he had the impudence to revert to comparisons that no
longer existed in this topsy-turvy old world. He was an upstart. The
final curtain had dropped between him and his world, and he was still
thinking in the ancient make-up. Middle class! He was no better than a
troglodyte, set down in a new wilderness.
He heard the curtain rings slither on the pole. Believing the intruder
to be Kuroki he turned belligerently. And there she stood--the girl
herself! The poise of her reminded him of the Winged Victory in
the Louvre. Where there had been a cup of champagne in his veins
circumstance now poured a magnum.
“You!” he cried.
“What has happened? Where are you going in those clothes?” demanded
Kitty.
“I am running away--for an hour or so.”
“But you must not! The risks--after all the trouble we've had to help
you!”
“I shall be perfectly safe, for you are going with me. Aren't you
my guardian angel? Well, rather! The two of us--people, lights, shop
windows! Perfectly splendiferous! Honestly, now, where's the harm?” He
approached her rapidly as he spoke, and before the spell of him could be
shaken off Kitty found her hands imprisoned in his. “Please! I've been
so damnably bored. The two of us in the streets, among the crowds!
No one will dare touch us. Can't you see? And then--I say, this is
ripping!--we'll have dinner together here. I will play for you on the
old Amati. Please!”
The fire of him communicated to the combustibles in Kitty's soul. A
wild, reckless irony besieged her. This adventure would be exactly what
she needed; it would sweep clear the fog separating one side of her
brain from the other. For it was plain enough that part of her brain
refused to cooperate with the other. A break in the trend of thought:
she might succeed in getting hold of the puzzle if she could drop it
absolutely for a little while and then pick it up again.
She had not gone home. She had not notified Bernini. She had checked her
luggage in the station parcel room and come directly here. For what? To
let the sense of luxury overcome the hidden repugnance of the idea of
marrying Cutty, divorcing him, and living on his money. To put herself
in the way of visible temptation. What fretted her so, what was wearing
her down to the point of fatigue, was the patent imbecility of her
reluctance. There would have been some sense of it if Cutty had proposed
a real marriage. All she had to do was mumble a few words, sign her name
to a document, live out West for a few months, and be in comfortable
circumstances all the rest of her life. And she doddered!
She would run the streets with Johnny Two-Hawks, return, and dine with
him. Who cared? Proper or improper, whose business was it but Kitty
Conover's? Danger? That was the peculiar attraction. She wanted to rush
into danger, some tense excitement the strain of which would lift her
out of her mood. A recurrent touch of the wild impulsiveness of her
childhood. Hadn't she sometimes flown out into thunderstorms, after
merited punishment, to punish the mother whom thunder terrorized? And
now she was going to rush into unknown danger to punish Fate--like a
silly child! Nevertheless, she would go into the streets with Johnny
Two-Hawks.
“But are you strong enough to venture on the streets?”
“Rot! Dash it all, I'm no mollycoddle! All nonsense to keep me pinned in
like this. Will you go with me--be my guide?”
“Yes!” She shot out the word and crossed the Rubicon before reason
could begin to lecture. Besides, wasn't reason treating her shabbily in
withholding the key to the riddle? “Johnny Two-Hawks, I will go as far
as Harlem if you want me to.”
“Johnny Two-Hawks!” He laughed joyously, then kissed her hands. But he
had to pay for this bending--a stab that filled his eyes with flying
sparks. He must remember, once out of doors, not to stoop quickly. “I
say, you're the jolliest girl I ever met! Just the two of us, what?”
“The way you speak English is wonderful!”
“Simple enough to explain. Had an English nurse from the beginning.
Spoke English and Italian before I spoke Russian.”
He seized the wooden mallet and beat the Burmese gong--a flat piece of
brass cut in the shape of a bell. The clear, whirring vibrations filled
the room. Long before these spent themselves Kuroki appeared on the
threshold. He bobbed.
“Kuroki, Miss Conover is dining here with me to-night. Seven o'clock
sharp. The best you have in the larder.”
“Yes, sair. You are going out, sair?”
“For a bit of fresh air.”
“And I am going with him, Kuroki,” said Kitty. Kuroki bobbed again.
“Dinner at seven, sair.” Another bob, and he returned to the kitchen,
smiling. The girl was free to come and go, of course, but the ancient
enemy of Nippon would not pass the elevator door. Let him find that out
for himself.
When the elevator arrived the boy did not open the door. He noted the
derby on Hawksley's head.
“I can take you down, Miss Conover, but I cannot take Mr. Hawksley. When
the boss gives me an order I obey it--if I possibly can. On the day the
boss tells me you can go strolling, I'll give you the key to the city.
Until then, nix! No use arguing, Mr. Hawksley.”
“I shan't argue,” replied Hawksley, meekly. “I am really a prisoner,
then?”
“For your own good, sir. Do you wish to go down, Miss Conover?”
“No.”
The boy swung the lever, and the car dropped from sight.
“I'm sorry,” said Kitty.
Hawksley smiled and laid a finger on his lips. “I wanted to know,” he
whispered. “There's another way down from this Matterhorn. Come with
me. Off the living room is a storeroom. I found the key in the lock the
other day and investigated. I still have the key. Now, then, there's
a door that gives to the main loft. At the other end is the stairhead.
There is a door at the foot of the first flight down. We can jolly well
leave this way, but we shall have to return by the lift. That bally
young ruffian can't refuse to carry us up, y' know!”
Kitty laughed. “This is going to be fun!”
“Rather!”
They groped their way through the dim loft--for it was growing dark
outside--and made the stairhead. The door to the seventeenth floor
opened, and they stepped forth into the lighted hallway.
“Now what?” asked Kitty, bubbling.
“The floor below, and one of the other lifts, what?” Twenty minutes
later the two of them, arm in arm, turned into Broadway.
“This, sir,” began Kitty with a gesture, “is Broadway--America's
backyard in the daytime and Ali Baba's cave at night. The way of the
gilded youth; the funnel for papa's money; the chorus lady; the starting
point of the high cost of living. We New Yorkers despise it because we
can't afford it.”
“The lights!” gasped Hawksley.
“Wreckers' lights. Behold! Yonder is a highly nutritious whisky blinking
its bloomin' farewell. Do you chew gum? Even if you don't, in a few
minutes I'll give you a cud for thought. Chewing gum was invented by a
man with a talkative wife. He missed the physiological point, however,
that a body can chew and talk at the same time. Come on!”
They went on uptown, Hawksley highly amused, exhilarated, but frequently
puzzled. The pungent irony of her observations conveyed to him that
under this gayety was a current of extreme bitterness. “I say, are all
American girls like you?”
“Heavens, no! Why?”
“Because I never met one like you before. Rather stilted--on their good
behaviour, I fancy.”
“And I interest you because I'm not on my good behaviour?” Kitty whipped
back.
“Because you are as God made you--without camouflage.”
“The poor innocent young man! I'm nothing but camouflage to-night. Why
are you risking your life in the street? Why am I sharing that risk?
Because we both feel bound and are blindly trying to break through. What
do you know about me? Nothing. What do I know about you? Nothing. But
what do we care? Come on, come on!”
Tumpitum--tump! tumpitum--tump! drummed the Elevated. Kitty laughed. The
tocsin! Always something happened when she heard it.
“Pearls!” she cried, dragging him toward a jeweller's window.
“No!” he said, holding back. “I hate--jewels! How I hate them!” He broke
away from her and hurried on.
She had to run after him. Had she hesitated they might have become
separated. Hated jewels? No, no! There should be no questions, verbal or
mental, this night. She presently forced him to slow down. “Not so fast!
We must never become separated,” she warned. “Our safety--such as it
is--lies in being together.”
“I'm an ass. Perhaps my head is ratty without my realizing it. I fancy
I'm like a dog that's been kicked; I'm trying to run away from the pain.
What's this tomb?”
“The Metropolitan Opera House.”
As they were passing a thin, wailing sound came to the ears of both.
Seated with his back to the wall was a blind fiddler with a tin cup
strapped to a knee. He was out of bounds; he had no right on Broadway;
but he possessed a singular advantage over the law. He could not be
forced to move on without his guide--if he were honestly blind. Hundreds
of people were passing; but the fiddler's “Last Rose of Summer” wasn't
worth a cent. His cup was empty.
“The poor thing!” said Kitty.
“Wait!” Hawksley approached the fiddler, exchanged a few words with him,
and the blind man surrendered his fiddle.
“Give me your hat!” cried Kitty, delighted.
Carefully Hawksley pried loose his derby and handed it to Kitty. No stab
of pain; something to find that out. He turned the instrument, tucked it
under his chin and began “Traumerei.” Kitty, smiling, extended the hat.
Just the sort of interlude to make the adventure memorable. She knew
this thoroughfare. Shortly there would be a crowd, and the fiddler's cup
would overflow--that is, if the police did not interfere too soon.
As for the owner of the wretched fiddle, he raised his head, his mouth
opened. Up there, somewhere, a door to heaven had opened.
True to her expectations a crowd slowly gathered. The beauty of the girl
and the dark, handsome face of the musician, his picturesque bare head,
were sufficient for these cynical passers-by. They understood. Operatic
celebrities, having a little fun on their own. So quarters and dimes and
nickels began to patter into Cutty's ancient derby hat. Broadway will
always contribute generously toward a novelty of this order. Famous
names were tossed about in undertones.
Entered then the enemy of the proletariat. Kitty, being a New Yorker
born, had had her weather eye roving. The brass-buttoned minion of the
law was always around when a bit of innocent fun was going on. As
the policeman reached the inner rim of the audience the last notes of
Handel's “Largo” were fading on the ear.
“What's this?” demanded the policeman.
“It's all over, sir,” answered Kitty, smiling.
“Can't have this on Broadway, miss. Obstruction.” He could not speak
gruffly in the face of such beauty--especially with a Broadway crowd at
his back.
“It's all over. Just let me put this money in the blind man's cup.”
Kitty poured her coins into the receptacle. At the same time Hawksley
laid the fiddle in the blind man's lap. Then he turned to Kitty and
boomed a long Russian phrase at her. Her quick wit caught the intent.
“You see, he doesn't understand that this cannot be done in New York. I
couldn't explain.”
“All right, miss; but don't do it again.” The policeman grinned.
“And please don't be harsh with the blind man. Just tell him he mustn't
play on Broadway again. Thank you!”
She linked her arm in Hawksley's, and they went on; and the crowd
dissolved; only the policeman and the blind man remained, the one
contemplating his duty and the other his vision of heaven.
“What a lark!” exclaimed Hawksley.
“Were you asking me for your hat?”
“I was telling the bobby to go to the devil!”
They laughed like children.
“March hares!” he said.
“No. April fools! Good heavens, the time! Twenty minutes to seven. Our
dinner!”
“We'll take a taxi.... Dash it!”
“What's wrong?”
“Not a bally copper in my pockets!”
“And I left my handbag on the sideboard! We'll have to walk. If we hurry
we can just about make it.”
Meantime, there lay in wait for them--this pair of April fools--a
taxicab. It stood snugly against the curb opposite the entrance to
Cutty's apartment. The door was slightly ajar.
The driver watched the south corner; the three men inside never took
their gaze off the north corner.
“But, I say, hasn't this been a jolly lark?”
“If we had known we could have borrowed a dollar from the blind man;
he'd never have missed it.”